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Comment by alacs543 | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for the reply. So, I can safely assume that if you signed up for an app, you wouldn't be upset or annoyed if they randomly emailed you? Maybe I'm unique in that way. Hence why this post :)

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I'd say that you can email them, but only very infrequently. Also, your first (and every) email to them should give them an opt-out mechanism, even if there wasn't one when they first signed up. (This means that, if you don't have the opt-out mechanism yet, finish that before you email them.)

I wouldn't WANT the email, but wouldn't be surprised by it. Its actually less offensive to email sooner. If you email me 6 months after I signed up just to check something out, I probably won't remember what the service was and will be annoyed. If you email a week after I signed up, I'll either read or delete and move on.

I for one will tolerate about one marketing or feature update email per month from a service I actively use. More than that and it gets irritating. Less than once every 3 months for a service I DON'T actively use, and I'll forget who you are.

And for me at least, feature update emails are the most likely to get at least skimmed. I'm generally not interested in your latest generic blog post about how to be better at X (hint: use our product!) Maybe some people are. But if your product now does something I was previously hoping it would (or that I hadn't even thought about but now realize would be super useful), I'll be GLAD to have received the email.

And yes, always offer and honor an unsubscribe. In many markets it's the law; and it others it's common courtesy.

If I signed up with my email address, I would certainly expect email communications at some point (with some way to opt-out of further emails).

I would be irritated, as I didn't agree to any communication. Apparently, there are different views on the matter.

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